I landed in Douala, Cameroon, for the first time nearly three years ago, on a mission. Not a mission of building churches or schoolhouses. My purpose waxed more sensual than spiritual and more selfish than selfless. As I wound through the scarcely lit airport terminal, with walls like wet paper bags, I batted away mosquitoes and fought my way past eager bag-handlers and SIM card salesmen. My pulse quickened as I thought about my assignment for the next five days: love under the mosquito net.

I had come to Douala for a quickie with my husband, Brian. We'd spent much of the past three years separated, because of his work on a project in Cameroon for an Arlington-based energy company. Squeezing in a booty call between our home in northern Virginia and his work in West Africa, we experienced something explosive: the new quickie of the twenty-first century. For a lot of today's lovers, staying connected is more complicated than carving out five minutes alone in the bedroom.

Separating from our loved ones defies traditional logic, but our grandparents' stories of never spending more than one night apart have yellowed in the archives of relationship history. In today's flaccid economy, lovers have no choice but to follow their jobs, rather than their hearts. In 2008, 3.4 million married couples lived apart for reasons other than unhappiness, up from 2.7 million married couples in 2000, according to the most recent U.S. Census data. While many couples like us live, love and work across multiple time zones, our quickies have kept us together over the long haul.

Trust me. I'm a veteran. In 2001, before married life, Brian and I dated long distance while he worked in Hong Kong and I lived in Atlanta. We met in Atlanta while working for the same company, but his career took him away from headquarters. Fighting the naysayers drew us closer, and quickies from Madrid to Manila made us high on love. Every time felt like the first time, and after more than four years of dating, two of which were long distance, we wed in 2005.

The quickie, however, made a comeback in our relationship when Brian accepted a temporary gig in Cameroon. Each time he left for Africa, sometime for weeks, I dropped him off at Washington's Dulles airport. We perfected our hellos and goodbyes hugging and kissing on the curb outside Dulles. In the fall of 2006, and with me seven months pregnant, we reconstituted the quickie in London, and our hugs and kisses got tighter and hotter every time one of us stepped on a plane.

As his assignment dragged on, passing the year marker, Brian's passport proved that we spent more time apart than together. Going on family trips and visiting friends kept me busy back at home. But showing up alone too many times got people talking. Constantly defending our living arrangement exhausted me.

"Brian left you again," one of my neighbors loved to joke. After the birth of our daughter in December 2006, friends and family would say, "You're raising that kid alone."